Nariman El-Mofty
However, at the beginning of the pandemic, almost a third of people around the world had no way of washing their hands with soap at home, as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund Unicef reported in Geneva on Thursday.
“Investments in water, sanitation and hygiene must become a priority worldwide in order to end the pandemic and build more resilient health systems,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
There has been some progress, but it is slow: If things continue as they are, more than 1.5 billion people will probably still have to live without access to clean drinking water and sanitation by 2030.
In order to achieve the international goal of providing all people with adequate care by 2030, efforts would have to be at least quadrupled, and in some regions even tenfold, according to the WHO.
In 2020, a quarter of humanity out of a total of 7.8 billion people did not have clean drinking water at home. Almost half of the people did not have toilets or showers.
The numbers have only improved slightly since 2016: clean drinking water was now 74 percent instead of 70, and sanitary facilities 54 percent instead of 47 percent. One of the UN development goals is to adequately supply all people in the world with water and sanitary facilities by 2030. According to the WHO, this cannot be achieved with current efforts. The situation in Africa is particularly precarious.
Published: 07/01/2021, 5:44 p.m.
Last updated: July 1, 2021, 5:44 pm